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Storm blows Westcoast past 100,000 CSP seats

Westcoast claims it is first UK distributor to breach landmark figure on cloud uptake

Distributor Westcoast claims it has now sold over 100,000 cloud service provision (CSP) seats through its UK partners, thanks to an order from VAR Storm Technologies this month.

Westcoast started pushing its CSP programme last year, and says it is the first distributor in the UK to get past 100,000 seats. Its CSP programme consists of Microsoft Online Services solutions, for which the distributor was appointed a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Provider in 2015.

Mark Davies, Westcoast's cloud services director, said the distie's cloud partners "run into the hundreds not thousands", which means they are not just "numbers on a list".

"We believe we are the first distributor in the UK to go past 100,000 seats. That says a lot, given that we only started accelerating our CSP programme last September. Since then we've absolutely rocketed," he added.

"We've shown that when it comes to cloud service provision, the service delivery is everything. Our partners have seen their cloud numbers surge and their businesses boom thanks to the quality of services we deliver to them. We know every single one of [its partners], and their business really well. And they know that we deliver what we say we'll deliver. That's why our CSP business is flourishing."

Sam Cotton, solutions consultant and cloud lead at Storm Technologies, said Westcoast helped lift Storm's CSP practice "off the ground", enabling the VAR to surpass its targets so far.

"Without Westcoast, Storm's CSP practice would have never got off the ground," he explained. "From our first seat to our thousandth, the care and support shown by all the team has helped grow our business exponentially over the last six months. They're constantly helping support us in finding new opportunities within our install base and we always feel valued no matter the size of customer we bring in. Together we've been able to execute on our business plan, surpassing all targets along the way."